The Day of the Elephant
As it transpired, Echo Squadron Tankers finally got mobilized about the same time 61 Mech mobilized 47th Brigade into Lomba.
I would have liked to have become a tank crew commander, who doesn’t wanna be atop the food chain? Then again, I’d never have had the unique honour of serving with 61 Mechanised Battalion.
Over the next few weeks, 4 SAI and E-Squad (62 Mech) formed the primary offensive strike force while 61 Mech was mostly used to harry and divert enemy fire before the virgin warriors joined battle to earn scars of their very own.
Even with the addition of Olifant Squadron, 62 Mech didn’t have it all their way. As combat moved into the heavily mined Chambinga Heights area, they endured some of the heaviest battles of the Operation, on these occasions, against well-reinforced, dug-in, enemy Battalions, notably on the 9th and 17th November.
During the course of a battle, FAPLA managed to disable one Olifant by shooting out a track. This must’ve been something of a morale boost for the retreating force which by now, had sacrificed more than 100 MBTs of their own.
More poignantly however, 4 SAI boys endured a number of KIA during these clashes. In their most costly engagement, a Ratel was torn up by 23mm ZSU 23 anti-aircraft fire.
ZSU 23 was designed as a vehicle-mounted, quad-barrelled, anti-aircraft weapon but FAPLA discovered that by lowering the vehicle’s rear end, they could aim ZSU 23’s high-velocity projectiles at ground troops. At close range, ZSU 23 was easily capable of tearing new portholes in Ratel flanks; only the reinforced nose plate was just about thick enough to survive a direct strike.
By now we were within spitting distance of Cuito, well inside range for G5 and G6 cannons to begin relentless bombardment of the garrison at some cost to the forces holed up there. FAPLA had the advantage of another four Brigades already in the Cuito region. Despite this South African’s made inexorable gains toward the dirty little pond teaming with Malaria carrying Mozzies. Very hazardous, very risky.
In combat, the Olifant Squadron was unparalleled, in my experience. I only recall integrating one time with Echo Squad in an attack which included a close quarters, frontal assault against a number of T-55s. This relatively brief contact was prosecuted at a quicker tempo than our earlier contacts.
From what I recall, enemy tanks burst through a thicket ahead of our position, charging towards us. The Olifant was like a bodybuilder on a ‘roid-rage’, quickly subduing the enemy dead in their tracks.
Corporal Mark Alexander’s tank was 30 metres, on my right flank. Johnny Purnell’s 50-ton unit equally spaced to my left. The speed with which they flattened trees as we crossed terrain, simultaneously firing on the move, would’ve been breathtaking had I not been totally focussed on sharing the workload that morning.
Their 105mm stabilised guns fired rapidly and to devastating effect, often only needing a single shot to destroy a T-55 before moving onto another target.
It was insane. The speed they could reload and fire using a dedicated loader gave them a real advantage over the Ratel 90. Alexander’s gunner, Don Munro, never missed at such close range, each 105mm warhead doing immense damage, each time quickly disabling the target.
This contact was in a different league.
We were smashing into the enemy’s Squadron so hard and fast I felt confident enough to call Alexander on our shared channel: “Hey Mark, tell Don to leave some targets for us. It’s no fun picking off your sloppy seconds bru!”
The Olifant seemed a major boost to our offensive capability and called to either lead or integrate with 90 mils in every significant clash during November. Despite this the enemy, probably five times our combined size, finally managed to achieve a territorial advantage near Cuito and then, increasingly frequent rain began to undermine the effectiveness of our heavyweight giants.
One time, my Pantser mate Corporal Paul Gladwin from 4 SAI (who would’ve swapped places with me for a border tour), found himself with nothing more than a 7.62 Browning for defence during an unexpected brush with a T-55 he happened upon when transporting a Ratel 90 with damaged cannon.
In a moment of shock Gladwin’s driver reversed his vehicle blindly over a large tree stump, beaching it, then the driver jumped out and legged it.
Gladwin was forced to enter the driver cabin, free the vehicle while being targeted by the T-55.
Fortunately, his heroics were not punished. He, and the Ratel, lived on to fight another day. How he did not get hit …?
There are countless other stories of scrapes, incidents and accidents during Operation Modular, but these are not my stories to tell.
Toward the end of November, Charlie Squad received our final orders: Move back from frontline, provide security to G6 (155mm) battery who were within 20 clicks of Cuito and her valuable airstrip. The G6 were a prized target for MiG pilots because of the hurt they were inflicting, to this end SADF built a mock G6 installation which got used as decoy a number of times.
Enemy aircraft remained a constant threat right up ‘til the end, but they never found Charlie again.
Meantime G6 gunners noisily hurled air-burst and other deadly ordinance onto targets identified by forward OP’s. They also fired shells stuffed with propaganda leaflets designed to confetti the Cuito garrison with helpful messages.
These often unheralded OP guys were the sort they make movies about, the types who bos-kak into plastic bags, leave no sign, and eat slugs and grubs with their cornflakes. These freaks most probably scared the shit out of their pre-school teachers.
A standing legacy of Angola’s long Civil War meant it boasted many of the mostly densely land-mined areas in the world, the price of which also included a generation of limbless children and civilians unwittingly paying the price for other people’s war.
Photo 46 Hanging out with (protecting) G6 cannons towards the end of tour. They clearly weren’t firing at this moment. (Len M. Robberts)
Over the years, SADF boys also sacrificed many limbs and lives to landmines.
On one of our final days on 32 Alpha (the 2nd) we had a remarkably close encounter with a landmine.
We were inside a narrow cordon cleared through a minefield. It all seemed rather routine, no immediate threat but Zeelie’s hatch was shut, he was primed and ready. No evident risk, I was standing waist-high in the turret when, without warning, a blast erupted violently from the ground at our three o’clock position, less than ten metres perpendicular to 32 Alpha.
The resulting shock-wave rocked me sideways, shrapnel angrily peppered Ratel’s bodywork!
There were no ill effects whatsoever, and therefore nothing to report.
It’s debatable the vibration from a convoy of Ratel’s would’ve tripped a twitchy mine at that distance. Another possible explanation is the explosion was an artillery, or mortar strike of some description but that too seemed unlikely mainly ‘cos a single speculative artillery round didn’t make much sense either, they would’ve launched a few, nor was there that tell-tale whistling we usually heard with incoming ordinance. In any event the incident was laughed off as an amusing anecdote. It was a close call but no big deal, we were at war after all.
As Operation Modular drew to a close and a new containment operation (Hooper) began, 20 Brigade mustered a contingent of Citizen Force and National Servicemen to replace combatants in the field.
By now UNITA had been quite well equipped from captured materiel including a full Squadron of Russian tanks, armoured personnel carriers and over 100 logistics vehicles. And then there were the big prizes like SAM-8 and SA-9 missile systems.
At the end of November, Operation Modular formally ended. Operation Hooper, then later Operation Packer started, but these actions belong to other brave men from whom the ultimate sacrifice was sought and is their history for the telling.
61 Mech, 4 SAI and 32 Battalion were withdrawn from the frontline in preparation for the end of our two-year call of duty, but not before offering some of us a ‘generous’ financial incentive to stay in Angola and continue the fight.
One evening, Trooper Roderick van der Westhuizen noticed the unusual addition of UNITA security around our laager. Curiosity piqued by the arrival of a helicopter, he grabbed his R4 and leopard-crawled through the bush to within 15 metres of UNITA rebel leader himself, General Jonas Savimbi.
Savimbi, van der Westhuizen later reported to us, was in conference with our big cheese, vigorously requesting the current contingent of soldiers be forced to stay the war rather than replaced with young bucks who had none of our hard-won experience.
Fortunately the law specified two years army service – no more, so they could not force us to stay. Surviving three months at the front had tested our good fortune to the max. Lady Luck, I felt, was tired, there was no way any of us would volunteer to take any more of that shit.
Just outside Mavinga, and on our way home, we were happy, no, relieved, to be relinquishing our Ratel’s to youngsters coming through from the ’87 intake. Time would reveal that theirs wouldn’t be an easy ride either, the new soldiers of 61 Mech and Charlie Squad would lose brothers of their own in the coming months as FAPLA hunkered down at Cuito Cuanevale.
Embarrassed by the hammering his forces and investment had taken at Lomba, Fidel Castro reacted by deploying thousands of his best soldiers and hundreds more MBT. By February ’88 the Cubans had opened a new front in south-western Angola.
The Communists it seemed were willing to press on with the war, death toll be damned, however, the SA government were less willing to sacrifice so many of its young men. Ultimately, a form of diplomacy, inextricably linked to a changing world order, determined the final outcome of the bloody Angolan Bush War.
Charlie Squad arranged a little welcome party for the greenhorn replacement soldiers. As their transport trucks pulled through the bushes to our camouflaged positions we stormed them yelling loudly, brandishing sticks – the youngsters shat themselves!
We didn’t tell them much about the horrors of war, they would learn that for themselves, but they were shaken by our appearance and dreadful state of our bomb-scarred vehicles.
I could not imagine being thrown into this hell on our very first week arriving at Grootfontein a year before without the advantage of extra training and bonding as a unit, squadron and crew. These greenhorns deserve much respect.
We wished them well, donated our overstock of rat packs and bade them a long healthy life.
32 Alpha (the 2nd) got a fond pat on her regulation brown cannon, we were bundled onto a Troop transport aircraft at Mavinga bound for Rundu, then shipped by truck back into Angola to a secret temporary rehabilitation camp to complete our post Modular demobilisation.
Our rancid army clothing was replaced unquestioningly – a first for us in the army! Ice cold beers were bought and consumed in large gulps. A band played a cool tune we’d never heard before, appropriately titled ‘Johnny Come Home’ by Fine Young Cannibals, apparently it was a big hit on the music charts, but to be fair we’d been out of circulation for some time.
That first night I drank 23 cans of Castle Lager and woke the next morning with no ill effects. Other than a half-hearted attempt at psychological evaluation from some shiny new university graduates who had no chance of penetrating my armour, I recollect nothing whatsoever of the following ten days until our plane touched down at Durban airport and I walked into the arms of my waiting family.
An outline of our activities from that period has been provided to me by others.
Four days after arriving at demobilisation camp we crossed the border and exited Angola for the last time at Bittersweet.
Back at our Omuthiya base, we were strangers in a familiar environment. The unit conducted a final full-Battalion parade where we were issued the unique yellow and black 61 Mech dagger balkie (badge), recognition of cross-border action.
Photo 47 61 Mech boys enjoy the live music and first female sighting at demobilisation. (Len M. Robberts)
Photo 48 First day of demobilisation – I look somewhat the worse for wear centre of image. (Len M. Robberts)
Later, we were despatched to Grootfontein AFB which involved a three day layover waiting for our flight home. During this period there was, it is alleged, the flagrant consumption of copious quantities of cold alcoholic refreshment. Adams and Mills claim they were forced to care for me during a violent bout of sickness, apparently caused by a few drops of alcohol, but have failed to provide any conclusive evidence thereof.
Looking around the flight on our way home, the missing men, the thousand-yard stares all told their own story of our year on the border. Three months at war had taken a particularly heavy toll, not only in terms of lives lost but also in terms of the damaged and scarred psyche of soldiers about to become civilians, many still teenagers.
In the army we’d earned respect, as a unit we’d learned to trust each other like brothers and together in battle we’d triumphed against the odds.
Then, we were heroes.
But that was then, and that was there.
Away from SA, the world really didn’t give a fuck. We were on a fast track to ground zero, no thanks, no credit. No parachute to break our fall before we hit ground zero.
Photo 49 Coming back over the Okavango river near Bagani in the Caprivi strip after Ops Modular. Gert Niemand has the biggest grin on his bearded face – he certainly earned it! Left of shot Len Robberts can be seen taking the last of his series of war photos. (Martin Bremer)
Photo 50 Carol and Jenny pleased to get bro back from war, but they had no idea what we’d seen and done. (Elizabeth Mannall)
We said our final goodbyes to brothers-in-arms and the Angolan war, for me, ended.
I never looked back, nor followed half-truths printed in government controlled press. The door to that part of my psyche was locked shut. Occasionally the odd account leaked out when a bit drunk, one time even leading to a brawl at Gold Reef City, near Johannesburg, when three tossers refused to believe I’d fought in the Angolan war.
I learned that most folks can’t deal with it, speculation as to why would be fruitless here, the reasons myriad, psychological mainly. Needless to say, by leaving the army we were, in fact, leaving the one place in which our new ‘reality’ was in any way ‘normal’, our contribution respected and camaraderie reciprocated. The place where we implicitly understood, from first-hand experience, the very best and worst of humanity. How this affected individual actors would vary greatly, dependent on a multitude of variable factors and fate, but it affected every one of them.
Landing at Durban’s Louis Botha airport mid-December was a low-key event, no state-sponsored fanfare, no brass band or flag waving, no hero’s welcome, but I told myself it didn’t matter, reuniting with family was the big highlight.
They asked what we’d been up to, “ … we were in some big battles and got bombed by enemy aircraft … ” was about all I could say, somehow it seemed impossible to find the words to accurately convey the humour, heartache, trauma, fear and bravery that is life … at war.
War is not only about the searing moments, or hours, of combat, war is also about normalising day-to-day existence, acclimatising to, even enjoying, the extremes of pressure inside, or near, the operational pocket, from back-line support operative to front-line fighter.
We were re-entering ‘normal’ society but our reality and outlook was a very different shade of normal.
Society at large seemed uninterested, the government equally so unless we were required for Citizen Force ‘camps’.
Worse was yet to come. Just a few years later, political point-scoring pushed the plight of SADF veterans further down the political agenda, some, like those of 32 Battalion and other long-serving highly accomplished patriots, couldn’t tell friend from foe as their sacrifice, courage and commitment was castigated by pernicious politicians of a new world order.
The fact is, we were just expected to ‘handle it’, societal norms dictated we ‘button-up’ and tough it out, there was no room for internal head wounds. We were discarded, dismissed, left to find our own way. Some did ok, others less so.
Equally, I didn’t really want to acknowledge any trauma or injury, thinking that by exposing perceived ‘weaknesses’ I’d somehow undermine my claim to bravery, perhaps even manhood itself, and that just wouldn’t do. I’d shaved off my tache but could not remove the images, sights, sounds and horror of battle quite so easily, nor undo the altered perspective with which I viewed our ‘civilisation’.
At best I acknowledged the experience tuned my response and rapid reaction time whenever my Tumansky ‘twin-spool’ adrenal taps got tweaked and, if a target was identified, it needed to be properly neutralised. Naturally, this high-octane response trigger mechanism can lead to all sorts of complications in normal world.
In this I am not unique at all, in fact I’m quite certain that for most of us the experience resonated deeply, forever re-shaping or altering completely our outlook on life, death, and the world in which we live.
Recognition, awareness and redress of war related ‘head stuff’ should neither be assumed nor taken for granted, nor should trappings and baubles of our material world be confused for successful reconciliation of brain injuries sustained at war, these might merely provide another shield from which to shelter a scared kid still shivering with fear in a very deep foxhole.
We were still very young men at the end of 1987, abandoned to make sense in a world without the brutal high-octane, high-stakes adrenaline-fuelled camaraderie and candour we’d become accustomed to during 90 days at war.
Prospective employers placed no value on talents earned at such high cost.
Courage and commitment in the face of Russian Main Battle Tanks counted for nothing in a ‘normal’ world, a world separated only by the very thinnest veneer of civility from that hateful underbelly of humanity that continues to drag relentlessly through killings fields of death; the cost, a generation of cannon fodder soldiers.
My mother, like many other moms, knew her son hadn’t returned from the war unaffected. She read about the – at that time – little-known PTSD, and despite her best efforts, it took me twenty-four years and her 7-month terminal battle with MND to find enough courage to confront my ‘war within’.
Losing Mom was devastating, but her bravery and courage in death compelled me to begin reconciling post-trauma injuries by sharing my experiences with 61 Mechanised Battalion, of Operation Modular and in particular, to honour the courage of the forgotten Ratel 90 crewmen who repeatedly defied the odds in battle and most especially at that historic battle on the Lomba in 1987.
The final count was some 45 Russian Main Battle Tank killed or captured by 90mm crews. Not even the formidable Olifant Tank could claim as many prized scalps during the operation.
It is impossible now to be certain how the failure to achieve Communist operational objectives in South Eastern Angola in 1987 played into the sudden crumbling of USSR about a year later but, whatever the wider implications of our incredible victory, this relatively small well-trained force comprising mainly conscripted soldiers repelled a tsunami of weaponry and in so doing undoubtedly changed the immediate course of the Angolan Bush War.
Some even suggest Battle on the Lomba, the destruction of FAPLA’s 47th Brigade, sparked the chain reaction that eventually led to peace talks in mid-’88 with US Asst. Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker, acknowledged by many as the moment South Africa was steered onto a new political heading, into uncharted forests, under Greenhorn command.
Let history be the judge.
SALUTE, THE FALLEN, THE SURVIVORS, THE FAMILIES.